Sorry, I'll Keep My Toxic Masculinity
Earlier this year the American Psychological Association released a document aimed at the treatment of men and boys. Within this document it states that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and can be addressed through counselling.
So everyone is clear, traditional masculinity is defined as:
"Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership and assertiveness"
Being a man and also currently raising a young boy, this peaked my interest. Since these are traits that I've found to be virtuous and that I try to display on a regular basis, I started to wonder where this whole, "all masculine traits are harmful and need to be counselled out of men and boys" came from. It baffled me since these are traits that I in high regard and they have shaped a lot of who I am and the mindset that I have. I've also never used these attributes to harm others, or to insight the destruction that is described.
With this question in tow I did some research to better understand how masculinity is having a negative consequence on society. The initial statistics that I found show that men do indeed have a higher proclivity towards violence and crime. In 2013 and 2014 males accounted for 85% of legal offenses. That's a huge percentage!!
With this new understanding I sought out to understand the root cause as to why men were more prone to violence and crime. Could it all be attributed to these innate traits of "maleness?" As I started researching I began to notice a trend. A trend that I wasn't expecting and that contradicts the findings that all masculinity is toxic. It also speaks to the important role that men and fathers play in the development of young boys.
The statistics spoke to the rates of violence in men and boys as it relates to being raised fatherless. This research stated that "father deprivation is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than race, environment or poverty." Children who are "father deprived" are 72% of all teenage murderers, 60% of rapists, 70% of kids incarcerated, 2 times more likely to quit school, 11 times more likely to be violent, 3 out of 4 teen suicides, 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals and 90% of runaways.
Some other stats I came across highlighted the same trend. Children who grew up fatherless are 8 times more likely to go to prison, 5 times more likely to commit suicide, 20 times more likely to have behavioral issues, 20 times more likely to become rapists, 32 times more likely to become runaways, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 9 times more likely to drop out of high school and are one tenth as likely to get A's in schools.
While I've always understood that a lack of a positive role model can play a role in ones life, I never quite understood the magnitude of the issue and the importance that dads play in their sons life. However, from an evolutionary perspective this makes sense. In traditional hunter-gatherer tribes, boys were raised until a certain age by their mothers. During this phase, the care that they received was of a nurturing, coddling nature. As the boy grew there came a time when he joined his father and learned how to harness his "maleness" by using his abilities to the betterment of the tribe. Fathers taught their sons how to use their powers for good instead of evil so to speak.
The sad reality is that in modern society these teachings are not occurring from fathers. Instead mothers are attempting to step in and instill lessons that they themselves have never been taught. Try as they may, mothers are ill equipped to teach these lessons to their sons. They approach these lessons from a feminized lens which comes out skewed. The majority of the time the result is destruction.
The fact is that boys need positive male role models in order to thrive. They need to learn how to harness their masculine traits and use them to build rather than for destruction. Fathers play a crucial role in assuring that boys grow up to be strong, even tempered, logical and productive members of society. Boys don't need to be less masculine, they need to be taught how to be men. To me, this whole masculinity needs to be counselled out of men and boys is an attempt to rid society of something that is not a problem to begin with. It is another tactic used in order to weaken men and have them hate themselves.
So..fathers please raise your sons. Raise them to be strong. Raise them to understand what their role in the world is. Our world can't survive another generation of absent fathers. You owe your sons that much.
So everyone is clear, traditional masculinity is defined as:
"Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership and assertiveness"
Being a man and also currently raising a young boy, this peaked my interest. Since these are traits that I've found to be virtuous and that I try to display on a regular basis, I started to wonder where this whole, "all masculine traits are harmful and need to be counselled out of men and boys" came from. It baffled me since these are traits that I in high regard and they have shaped a lot of who I am and the mindset that I have. I've also never used these attributes to harm others, or to insight the destruction that is described.With this question in tow I did some research to better understand how masculinity is having a negative consequence on society. The initial statistics that I found show that men do indeed have a higher proclivity towards violence and crime. In 2013 and 2014 males accounted for 85% of legal offenses. That's a huge percentage!!
With this new understanding I sought out to understand the root cause as to why men were more prone to violence and crime. Could it all be attributed to these innate traits of "maleness?" As I started researching I began to notice a trend. A trend that I wasn't expecting and that contradicts the findings that all masculinity is toxic. It also speaks to the important role that men and fathers play in the development of young boys.
The statistics spoke to the rates of violence in men and boys as it relates to being raised fatherless. This research stated that "father deprivation is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than race, environment or poverty." Children who are "father deprived" are 72% of all teenage murderers, 60% of rapists, 70% of kids incarcerated, 2 times more likely to quit school, 11 times more likely to be violent, 3 out of 4 teen suicides, 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals and 90% of runaways.
Some other stats I came across highlighted the same trend. Children who grew up fatherless are 8 times more likely to go to prison, 5 times more likely to commit suicide, 20 times more likely to have behavioral issues, 20 times more likely to become rapists, 32 times more likely to become runaways, 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances, 9 times more likely to drop out of high school and are one tenth as likely to get A's in schools.
While I've always understood that a lack of a positive role model can play a role in ones life, I never quite understood the magnitude of the issue and the importance that dads play in their sons life. However, from an evolutionary perspective this makes sense. In traditional hunter-gatherer tribes, boys were raised until a certain age by their mothers. During this phase, the care that they received was of a nurturing, coddling nature. As the boy grew there came a time when he joined his father and learned how to harness his "maleness" by using his abilities to the betterment of the tribe. Fathers taught their sons how to use their powers for good instead of evil so to speak.
The sad reality is that in modern society these teachings are not occurring from fathers. Instead mothers are attempting to step in and instill lessons that they themselves have never been taught. Try as they may, mothers are ill equipped to teach these lessons to their sons. They approach these lessons from a feminized lens which comes out skewed. The majority of the time the result is destruction.
The fact is that boys need positive male role models in order to thrive. They need to learn how to harness their masculine traits and use them to build rather than for destruction. Fathers play a crucial role in assuring that boys grow up to be strong, even tempered, logical and productive members of society. Boys don't need to be less masculine, they need to be taught how to be men. To me, this whole masculinity needs to be counselled out of men and boys is an attempt to rid society of something that is not a problem to begin with. It is another tactic used in order to weaken men and have them hate themselves.
So..fathers please raise your sons. Raise them to be strong. Raise them to understand what their role in the world is. Our world can't survive another generation of absent fathers. You owe your sons that much.
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